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Month: March 2015

I’m very blessed to be a mum to a gorgeous, clever and kind toddler who makes me laugh daily. I’m blessed to have a wonderful mum and a very kind mum-in-law too.

My latest project is a A3 pastel painting for another fantastic mum. So it was very appropriate that I finished it in time for Mother’s Day. Gayna runs TinyTalk classes for babies and toddlers and she brightens up the day of many mums locally, with her energy, enthusiasm and wicked sense of humour.

I decided to celebrate the arrival of her second baby with a pastel painting of him being held by his big brother. I have been busy since his arrival, so it’s a little late, but that only added to the surprise I think!

A3 Pastel Painting

It’s my first full colour (human) portrait in pastels and I’m really pleased with the result. My friend Gayna is speechless – and that is saying something!

Whether you are a mum, or just appreciate your own, I hope you’ve had a great Mother’s Day!

I must have given a very good impression of having a slow start to 2015 because I haven’t updated this blog. But really, I’ve been extremely busy. In early January we got some surprising but very welcome news that we were going to be able to move house. So I spent a lot of January and February packing, unpacking and decorating, and several weeks without home internet access.

I prioritised having a place to work on my art, and an easy to access place to store my materials, as soon as we moved in. I didn’t want to have my art materials spread around in boxes and difficult to get to because it just puts a massive obstacle to creating. I also tried to get my drawing board out as many evenings as possible to get into a good habit of working and creating here.

These zebras I drew as part of an art challenge run by Lisa Clough (Lachri Fine Art). She provided a reference photo of the foreground zebra, and challenged people to draw or paint it into a new scene. I choose a natural backdrop, from a beautiful shot of zebra by Frankie Kay (via Neil Nicholson on Paint My Photo).

Zebras Grazing on the Savannah

I’m currently working on a portrait which is a gift so I can’t share in progress photos. Over the next few weeks I’m going to concentrate on designing my website so that I’m ready to market my art business outside of my friends and relatives on Facebook. 2015 has been lucky and exciting for me so far and I’m really looking forward to growing as an artist this year. I’ve got the opportunity to exhibit some artwork in a local exhibition in June with my local art group, so I’m looking forward to creating some original work for that. I’d like to focus on some wildlife pieces, so these zebras might make an appearance!

I’ve also joined an online art group started by Lisa Clough (Lachri) who I mentioned above, and it’s really great to be surrounded by so many inspiring artists, especially when I find it difficult to get along to my local group regularly.

I hope your new year is going as well as mine, I’ll try to update again soon, so if you have any questions or comments, just leave me a message below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.